While I was in Neals Yard Dairy the other week, I noticed 4 litres of discounted Ivy House whole milk.

Although it’s pasteurised, it’s fantastic milk for cheese-making giving great strong curd … oh and it tastes pretty good too!

Discounted? Done!

Warming the milk to 29C

The milk was heated to 29C, at which point some DVI and rehydrated Penicillum Camemberti and Geotrichium Candidium was added, stirred and left for around 30 minutes. The pH dropped slightly during this time from 6.5 to 6.4.

Adding the rehydrated moulds

Measuring out the rennet

Dilute 0.5ml vegetarian rennet in previously boiled and cooled water, and add to the milk.

Once added, stir for a couple of minutes – solids begin to form after 5 or so minutes so don’t stir too vigorously for too long.

Adding the diluted rennet

Clean break

Ladelling out the curd

Once a clean break has been achieved, gently ladle out the curd (traditional Camembert isn’t cut) directly into moulds.

Placing curd in moulds

Curds draining

Leave the curds to drain overnight, or until it’s solid enough to flip in the mould.

Remove from the mould and rub in some salt to prevent any further acidification.

Place the curd in a cool area, around 18C @ 80% humidity for a few days to dry.

Once the curd is no longer draining, wrap in wax paper and place in 12C @ 90% humidity for a few weeks.

Plenty of white mould

During this time, there should be plenty of white mould (Penicillum Candidum) growth, and potentially other moulds too, depending on environment.

Since the milk is inoculated directly with the Penicillum Candidum, it’s likely that this will overtake any other (potentially nasty) moulds.

These are currently looking pretty good, thinking about cracking one open next weekend!

Update: after another couple of weeks of maturing in the new cheese cave (more on that in another post!) at 12C @ 90% humidity, it was time to open one up!

Note the rogue mould

It probably could’ve been opened a week or so earlier, as there was a fair amount of rind breakdown, and some rogue mould (probably from blues in the same fridge) had started to form.

Fair amount of breakdown near the rind

The insides were lovely and soft, and aside from the broken down portion just below the rind which had a bite, it was rather tasty!

So tasty in fact, that this was the first (non-fresh) cheese that was happily devoured with crackers!

Om nom nom

Overall i’d rate this as pretty successful, however in future I would: